Slider

quote:

Originally posted by Gingerbread Man:
It is true, if you want to throw harder it is only going to come by practicing to throw harder. After that game, it was like my son reached a new bar in velocity. In all of travel ball the rest of the year there was only one kid I seen throw noticably harder in his age group with quite a few around his same velocity. That other kid threw true lightning bolts! It was the first time I had ever seen a 12 year old kid throwing fastballs approaching 80 mph! That kid propelled hi Cal Ripken team to the state finals, winning, going to regionals, winning and then making an appearance at the Cal Ripken world series back east. They lost in that tournament, but man could that kid throw! He was also of coarse 5'11". He didn't need any curveball or change-up! In a game once I saw him throw a change-up really slow- more like a lob ball (about 40 mph). It totally buckled the batters knees- so unexpected. That too was funny!

I don't find that scenerio funny at all. Reminds me of the hard throwing kids when my son was younger, not one of them is now at the level son is, and most blew out their arms in HS. All because all they did was throw as hard as they could, so young, so early.
My son was a hard thrower at a young age, he was NOT encouraged to throw his hardest, but rather concentrate on spotting his FB and mix in with CU. He didn't throw curves until 14-15 and not a true slider until college, after his velo had leveled off. There was plenty of time for him to mature, work on mechanics season after season(they change as the pitcher'sd body grows) adjustments with growth, but never throw his hardest (peak velo) anymore than a few times in a game. It isn't necessary at that age. You save that stuff for later on when it really has meaning. As a young hard throwing pitcher, son pitched to contact, only at full velo when needed, which was only a few times in a game. That helped keep his arm healthier and let the other kids do their job in the field. It's great to win games, but if the young pitcher is doing all of the work, he won't be able to work at all later on. Just an observation of what we encountered in youth baseball. That's why the FB becomes a dangerous pitch! The harder a young pitcher throws, the more issues he will have later on because he learns to rely on throwing the hardest he can in every game to win games.

I agree with PG, no matter what you THINK you are doing right, you do not have a crystal ball to predict a young pitchers future.

JMO

Sounds like there are still a lot of different theories about why pitchers get injured and how to prevent it, especially at younger ages.

I'm not sure I agree with TPM's post, because it assumes that only the hardest-throwing kids are throwing their hardest. I have a feeling that the softer-tossers are probably throwing their hardest, too.

LHPMom

quote:

Originally posted by LHPMom2012:

I'm not sure I agree with TPM's post, because it assumes that only the hardest-throwing kids are throwing their hardest. I have a feeling that the softer-tossers are probably throwing their hardest, too.

LHPMom

That's ok you can disagree, but to clarify I meant the hardest throwing young pitchers.

Which brings another point. Very young pitchers don't have the core strength or the leg strength to throw it max, often. They should find the comfort level to cruise at, and then bring it on a few times. I have seen too many young pitchers just trying to throw their hardest at every pitch, with arms. That's not how it works to me anyway. Velocity comes with physical maturity, years of conditioning and good mechanics. You do not have to be the hardest thrower to be a good pitcher. In other words, save it for later.

If more did this, they would have less injuries.

I didn't realize there were different theories on how young pitchers get hurt. The ones I am familiar with is watching pitch counts, rest in between starts, take time off, use pitches wisely (limit CB, no true sliders, no knuckleballs, splitters, etc) and develop a good 2 , 4 seam fastball, and CU before anything else.

It's a proven fact that hard throwing pitchers suffer a greater chance of injury. Young hard throwing pitchers need to learn how to control their velocity and not be called upon because they bring on the heat for their LL team, not used or abused for their speed.

I don
t know the anwers as to why some get hurt or why sonme don't. I can only pass on what worked for our pitcher, which is not what I see posted sometimes. What you want to do, is not care how hard your son throws at 12,13,14 maybe even 15 but how he throws when a co;;ege coach is looking at him or a ML scout. Because son threw very hard very young, we didn't make any big deal about it, just let him do his thing, stay loose, no Cb, no slider, none of that pther stuff either, he is 23 throws even harder now and has had one bump in the road. I am glad he's made it this far. I think alot has to do with just being pitcher parent smart (thanks to hubby).

TPM,

I agree on the principle you mention that "hard throwing pitchers suffer a greater chance of injury". The philosophy I use with my son is to only work on throwing harder in practice. By this I mean that when we do a bullpen on an off day he will throw for a good 20-30 minutes at 50-75% velocity and then move to the mound and throw 30-50 pitches gradually getting faster and stretching it out as he goes. At the end when he is feeling really warm and strong before any fatigue sets in I tell him to "finish strong" and to work on throwing harder- to "practice throwing harder" his last few pitches. It is a slightly different approach to "throwing his hardest" even though that is precisely how it translates. In games it is about throwing "in control"- to throw at a comfortable paced rate and the velocity naturally will be there without emphasizing it too much.

I personally believe that injury occurs when kids push beyond their limits- after fatigue has set in. Like is well known, mechanics do break down as games wear on and pitchers resort more to "arming" the ball in to make up for the body fatigue no longer being as explosive. The arm can hold out the longest because in normal circumstances it is pretty much just along for the ride and most of the work is done in the legs and torso.

I do agree that the best mix of pitching is the fastball and change-up. Every good hitter hates a good change-up when it so closely mimicks the fastball. I did fail to mention that in my sons case in his city league, that he only pitched hard against that team with those specific players on it! Most of the time it was just throwing at the 80-90% velocity which was good enough for the city league. At 48 feet, sons fastball at 90% velocity was still too fast for 95% of the hitters. He went all season and finished with a 0.00 era. Everuone thought it was because he threww too fast but I still atribute it to the "intimidation factor" in that first game he pitched in where he knocked the catcher off his feet because the catcher was off balance and didn't expect the fastaball to get there so quick- kind of caught him off guard.

I did an interesting study with the fastball and change-up to really find out why the combo is so deadly. On our ll team, I would get about 15 feet away and practice with them hitting wiffle balls as fast as I could throw them. I learned that anybody with even a little talent could hit with the quickest of reaction times if they were "conditioned" to do so. I timed the reaction time of hitting my wiffle balls with these kids. I found out that the time it left my hand to the moment of contact was only around 2-3 tenths of a second. This speed rivals MLB reaction time for fastballs thrown at the 100+mph mark. This of coarse boosted the kids confidence on the team and we just anhilated everyones fastballs during the season.

Along with throwing these wicked fast wiffle balls, I noted that if I slowed it down at all once they were conditioned to hit at that rate, they could not hit it at all, no matter how hard they tried. I set up a camera to see at what point the batter had realized the pitch was slower. To my amazement, it appeared that the batter did not realize it was slower until after his bat had already entered the strike zone area- the moment of full power. Another interesting aspect is that they were only missing it by about 2-3/100ths of a second!

And then it dawned on me- it wasn't that they were missing it at all- had it been a fastball it would have been crushed to oblivian! It was the fact that now the fastball (in their minds) had magically come in slower and upon realizing it after the fact of the matter they would thus try to slow the bat down making them look foolish of coarse with a broken down swing.

So what I then worked on with my son was the philosophy of actually trying to throw the change-up like he would on a peak velocity fastball throwing it on the same exact plane also. This was done to better mimick the fastball. I realized through slo-motion tape the change-up when at its best, needs to only be a few miles per hour slower than the last fastball thrown to a batter. This is best achieved when a batter fouls off a fastball either directly in back into the backstop or to his power side- then throw the change-up at peak velocity and almost every time they will swing out of their shoes with confidence only to realize that somehow that fastball magically slowed down and now they look silly- it really messes with kids heads!

good luck to you and your son!

quote:

I am somewhat skepticle about "breaking pitches" hurting young kids arms.

ASMI (Dr Andrews) couldn't find a correlation between a PROPERLY thrown curve and arm injury in youth pitchers. They still state the biggest cause of injury is overuse. If a kid throws ten mechanically unsound curves a week and doesn't pitch too much, I doubt he would hurt his arm. But I would not have a young pitchers with good mechanics throw a lot of curves.

quote:

the only time his arm hurts is when he throws long innings/ long games

Why do you allow this?

5 games in a weekend----regardless of when or where this can come back to haunt him later on in his career---the majority of arm injuries are usually the result of previous overuse when the player was younger

quote:

5 games in a weekend----regardless of when or where this can come back to haunt him later on in his career---the majority of arm injuries are usually the result of previous overuse when the player was younger

TRhit

Why do you think I took my kid off that team? Because he was pitching too frequently inbetween outings.

Overuse in young pitchers "can" lead to injuries later on if it goes unchecked. Just because a youth pitcher pitches a lot while young does not mean that if he gets injured later on it was due to him throwing more as a youth.

I cannot remember the article I once read, but it stated that pitchers who start out young and throw during their growing years end up having better arms than those who do not. The bones grew differently and as a result, it produced an arm that was better conducive to throwing.

GM,
I am glad that you have it all figured out, you're going to need all that knowledge to keep your pitcher healthy.

How old is your son?

quote:

it stated that pitchers who start out young and throw during their growing years end up having better arms than those who do not. The bones grew differently and as a result, it produced an arm that was better conducive to throwing.

Huh!

PG-

I would be interested in a further description of the grip slider you mention. I've heard the term before, but I'm not overly familiar with what you mean. Any further explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I believe this link will take you to the grip PG spoke of... http://www.carlton32.com/pages/slider.html

bbman:

How has your son been doing since his first start? I'm from the same area and 6AAAAA region is the best.

Knapper1, he is doing well. He has had 4 starts and is 2-0 with 2 no decisions. 1st start was against W. Forsyth - 3 innings, 2nd against S. Forsyth - 7 innings and win, 3rd against Alpharetta - 4 innings, no decision, and started last night against Walton - 6 innings and a win. Overall a 3.15 ERA.

Seems like it is one challenge after another in this region. Definetely no cake walk. He seems to have stepped up to the challenge and done well for himself, especially being so young.

From a parents perspective, almost every game has been a nail biter. Very exciting and stressful. Wouldn't trade it for anything though.